HICKORY CREEK — The Town Council appointed a library task force Tuesday, charging its Lake Cities Library board appointees and a fourth member with figuring out if the town can open its own library.

Council member Eric Wiser, whose wife, Kathryn Wiser, is one of the board members charged with the additional task force duties, said he didn’t consider the move one against the current library, but rather the next step in responding to community needs.

“I don’t view this as a negative,” Eric Wiser said. “We can step forward and do the research.”

Members of the Lake Cities Library board told each of its member cities — Corinth, Hickory Creek, Lake Dallas and Shady Shores — at budget time of a need to expand. In terms of space, the library is about a quarter of the size it needs to be, board members said.

Council member Chris Gordon relayed a constituent’s concern about the library’s small size and inability to expand its collection. Both the resident and her daughter are interested in the history of Africa.

“Her 7-year-old daughter has already tapped out the collection, having read every Africa history book they have,” Gordon said. “Now, they go to Denton.”

Out-of-town residents must pay a $50 annual fee for borrowing privileges at the Denton Public Library. About 2,400 people with Lake Cities addresses hold such a card, according to Sian Brannon of the Denton Public Library.

Eric Wiser said that compared with offerings — particularly for children — at other Dallas-Fort Worth area libraries, the Lake Cities facility was “light-years behind.”

Of the four member cities, only Hickory Creek answered the Lake Cities Library board’s call for expansion with more money, council member Lynn Clark said.

“We went through the exercise with the Lake Cities Library of looking at the option to move,” Clark said. “Not everyone agreed with the board on a new location, but a lot of us thought we were on the verge — and frankly, we were the only city that stepped up to the plate.”

Council member Richard Baker said all joint ventures between the cities work under interlocal agreements, except the library. He sees an interlocal agreement as an option to help pay for the library, he said, but the town needed to find out whether the other cities would still be on board if Hickory Creek took the lead.

“Would they go year by year, or would they look at pulling out?” Baker said.

The town also could form a foundation to support private fundraising and call for a bond election, council members said.

Eric Wiser cautioned the council that if the task force needed to come up with a recommended bond package, it would have to do so fairly quickly to make statewide deadlines for the spring election calendar.

“A library in 10 years may look very different than it does today,” he said. “It’s possible we could have a bond next year, but before we do that we need to know costs.”

In addition to Kathryn Wiser, the task force includes fellow library board members Jaycee Holston and Bob Clark along with resident Shirley Goldfield.

PEGGY HEINKEL-WOLFE can be reached at 940-566-6881. Her e-mail address is pheinkel-wolfe@dentonrc.com.